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Spiteski posted:Entertainment costs vary greatly. Some months we do nothing, others we'll spend 150 on a big weekend. I honestly couldnt estimate an accurate weekly figure but I'd guess we spend 50 a week on outings. That may be horribly underestimated though. For American readability sure, lets look at this in kiwi speak: Weekly Incomings: $517 - govt/student related income (less IRD payment) $15-80 - variable carpool income Weekly Outgoings: $120 Petrol $20.5 - Phones $12.5 - Internet $25 - Baby Chow $18.5 - Minimum credit card payments TOTAL: $196.50 per week (ignoring netball fees because that's not due until after your wedding, road fines because that's $20 total until it's over and your IRD payments are $20/week - whats that for? Child support? You're under the threshold for repaying your loan yet arent you? Also ignoring the student loan in general as you're not going to be stung for that until you finish studying and get a job i.e. unrelated to wedding expenses) Even ignoring your variable carpool income, your minimum weekly outgoings are 38% of your total income. Given you only need to save $125/week for the $3k target or $166/week for the $4k target of course it's bloody doable. I'm surprised your parents haven't given you a smack around the head for spending your money on poo poo and maxing out both a credit card and overdraft while they have let your entire family live with them for no cost. If they are anything like my mum they are probably also doing a lot of grandparental babysitting and buying your kids most of their clothes/whatever because they don't want you financially stressing. I'm glad you realised you're being a moron because you are - they gave you a great opportunity to study without incurring even more debt (actually you couldn't have studied without them because your income wouldn't cover rent/household expenses) and you're repaying them by making GBS threads around. So. After taking out your weekly outgoings you're left with a slush of $320/week of fixed income. $166 toward wedding savings (which would probably be worth "saving" for by paying off your overdraft to stop the interest being charged) $150 toward weekly pocket money for you and your partner to blow on entertainment, lunches, takeaways, whatever (would strongly suggest you curtail spending and try to squeeze some of this into loan repayments) $4 + whatever variable income goes toward paying the principal off your loans If that's too tight, aim for $3k and drop the weekly saving amount to $125, freeing up another $41/week. After the wedding, the weekly saving toward wedding goes into travel and loan repayments. E: Yes I am unnecessarily rude about this because my sister did basically the same thing. Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 08:06 on May 27, 2015 |
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May 27, 2015 07:53
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 22:01 |
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Spiteski posted:As for having 150 a week for us to spend, I'm more worried about the increased cost of two of us having to travel separately each day to MIT. Public transport is a non-option as buses run only twice a day from my town to the nearest train station, and both are 6 o-clock (am and pm) which would be impossible to do when we cant drop the kids at daycare until after 7am and pickup is latest at 6pm. This is the main drawback to our living arrangement (please dont take this as me complaining about living rent free!) as we are basically forced to use personal cars. Doh, that's me being dumb, I forgot that it's still semester 1 and that by 'next semester' you mean July onwards. Okay yeah that is going to bork your finances a bit, and public transport in Auckland is a joke so no argument there. Is there any reason why you can't drop the kids off at daycare, her off at MIT and then go on to wherever your clinical placements are? It may get her to school way too early but she can use that downtime for studying/assignments etc. Paying for two cars is crippling if you're also trying to save for the wedding AND pay off debt. Now, assuming you can get by on one car and accepting that carpool $ is not a goer, lets look at that debt. Even though "saving" by paying off the overdraft will lessen any interest being charged on it you will end up overdrawing again because all that money has to come off again to pay for the wedding. A way around this could be to look at it like you have $6.6k of debt: 3k for wedding 2k for the overdraft 1.6k for the credit card It would take 52 weeks of $125/week to pay back $6.6k (or 40 weeks of $166/week). You would need to commit (seriously, COMMIT) to a plan of saving $125/week (or $166/week) for that period. Starting mid June until the end of December - 28 weeks - you would have put away $3500 (or $4848) which would pay off the overdrawn amount AND the credit card balance, leaving you debt free but with a further $3k of new debt about to be incurred for the wedding. You would continue saving $125 week for a further 24 weeks (or 12 weeks @ $166) to pay that off. I'm unsure of the wisdom of recommending this as I find it very easy to commit to long term saving plans without falling into bad habits, you may find it harder to stick to - maybe other posters will have suggestions on alternative ways for you to have all the things. If at all possible I would try to manage the $166/week because it's going to pinch no matter what you do but it will at least lessen the duration by 12 weeks. Also you would need to rely on your parents if poo poo hit the fan bill-wise like if your car exploded. Also re: your personal spend, $30 is too low to cover lunches + whatever, you will blast through it even with the best of intentions. You might be able to suck in the spending to $100/week instead of $150 though. But I think you need to accept the fact that takeaways are things that happen to other people right now if you want to have nice things like weddings. E: If you have a dessert course included in your catering costs, can it. We fed everyone our wedding cake instead. Saved us like $800 for the number of people we had, no one complained, almost everyone was stuffed anyway. Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 10:48 on May 27, 2015 |
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May 27, 2015 10:34
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Can you actually manage on the one car thing? I didn't see an answer to that and it's kind of the cornerstone for you being able to save. When does your nearly-wife finish her study, and what is she studying? I saw in your old thread she has already been studying for like 2 years, surely that will finish soonish? Also even after you finish studying you may need to consider moving to Hamilton. As a nurse/paramedic you can work anywhere (I hope nearly-wife has a similarly transferable degree) and Auckland, as you know, is comically overpriced, moreso on a nurse/paramedic salary. Hamilton keeps you within easy distance of grandparents (esp. if South Auckland based), is fuckloads cheaper and commute time is hardly anything, plus good schools for the kids.
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May 28, 2015 02:03
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Spiteski posted:In regards to moving areas we have been looking at Hamilton funnily enough. It is roughly the same travel time from where we live to Auckland as it is to Hamilton thanks to traffic so like you said it's a great compromise on living closer to the potential work area and staying within visiting range of friends and family. We've also thought about wellington as a potential option but that is more just a passing thought than anything. No idea on what living down there costs in comparison to up north. As someone who lives in Wellington I would say Hamilton is cheaper, and significantly closer to your parents. Wellington commutes are a bit poo poo too. Ehh about the midwife thing, gutted she wasted all that time and money on the old degree but we are chronically short of midwives so at least you both should be able to get jobs wherever (I.e not Auckland) you want. IF you can get through your stupid spending habits and not bunk out of uni anyway. E: it IS nice, I love Wellington even though it's loving cold right now. It's just more expensive and not near your family. Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 07:50 on May 28, 2015 |
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May 28, 2015 05:57
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Hellooooo! It's Accountability O'Clock! What did you decide to do re: your budget?
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Jun 3, 2015 06:45
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ITM posted:You are absolutely not entitled to the accommodation supplement when you have no accommodation costs. Hopefully they don't check, otherwise that is another debt you'll need to pay back. Maybe you mean the accommodation benefit, but that is based on what part of the country you live in and has nothing to do with transportation costs. The only part of the scheme which covers transportation is Course Related Costs, which would be adding to your student loan. I did check this as soon as I saw it, but according to Studylink the caveat to the accommodation supplement is that you aren't entitled to it if you live with you parents unless you have a child, of which the OP has two. I am pretty sure it's legit. I'll admit I was surprised by the Working for Families when they don't work though. Still. Ehh, it would either be study assistance or the dole. I'd rather my tax went toward people trying to keep a roof over their heads while trying to study and better their employment outcomes rather than long term unemployed beneficiaries. OP has correctly asked for an asskick to cease said taxpayer party.
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Jun 8, 2015 10:10
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Thanatosian posted:I know this sucks from the perspective of "we really wanted a huge wedding," but good on you for starting to take your finances seriously. Echoing this, it stinks you've had to change your plans but you've just removed a huge financial stressor, and if you can keep up the good work you will be well on your way to paying off your debt by Christmas and then actually saving real proper money afterwards.
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Jun 8, 2015 21:17
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 22:01 |
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Spiteski posted:Just a quick update; I have managed to get another bank's offer of interest free loan up to 2500 for the duration of study + 2 years after completing study (2 years after is more than my current bank offered) in order to avoid that fuckaround with my current back refusing to change my credit card to their interest free overdraft account. So I've taken 2000 as the overdraft limit, paid off the entire credit card and transferred my savings into the overdraft which is now sitting at -$1100 all up. So I no longer have any interest bearing debt. Yeeeeahhhh winner winner chicken dinner! Good work!
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Jul 6, 2015 07:43
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